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Antarctic Exploration: Douglas Mawson (1882 - 1958)
Douglas Mawson was an Australian explorer. He was also a geologist and in 1906 he identified a radioactive mineral which he named Davidite after his friend T. W. Edgeworth David.
Mawson was a member of the British Antarctic Expedition in 1907-1909 which was led by Ernest Shackleton. On a three-man sledge trip, Mawson and two others travelled to the magnetic South Pole. Mawson was among the first to climb Antarctica's Mount Erebus.
He also went on the scientific Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1911-1914. During this expedition, Mawson went on a trip in which only he survived, walking 160 km alone, hauling his geological specimens on a sled. He wrote a book about this journey, 'The Home of the Blizzard'.
Australian Antarctic base named after Mawson. The buildings look tiny in the vast landscape.
In 1929-31 Mawson led the British, Australian, New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (called BANZARE), mapping the coastline of Antarctica and discovering MacRobertson land and Princess Elizabeth Land (which later became the Australian Antarctic Territory).
Mawson's image appears on the Australian $100 bill.
For more information about Mawson http://www.south-pole.com/p0000099.htm
If you use any part of
this, acknowledge it in your bibliography like this:
Sydenham & Thomas, Antarctica
[Online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2007)
updated © [2007] kidcyber